Yalicoo’s highlights of last week
April 28, 2008
The market managed to end at a high point last week despite Microsoft's weaker forecast and oil prices that reached an all-time record. Microsoft reported weaker earnings that missed analysts’ forecasts and its stock slid more than 6% in a volume heavier than usual. Investors were expecting better results from the company, which has been trying to take over Yahoo! A number of other technology shares fell following the news from Microsoft. On the somewhat positive side, although American Express (AXP) reported weaker earnings as more credit card holders defaulted on payments, its earnings beat the estimates, raising the stock by 5.7%. (Needless to say, while the news may have benefited the company’s stock they also raised more concerns about the recession we discussed in previous newsletter). Positive signs were also shown in Goodyear Tire & Rubber (GT) reports. The results of the biggest U.S tire maker beat Wall Street expectations and its shares rose almost 6 percent in the morning trading.
Oil prices continue to rise; on Friday, oil prices jumped more than $2 to more than $118 a barrel on news of Nigerian and North Sea supply disruptions; this only added to the rising tension between the United States and Iran, after a U.S. Navy ship fired flares and warning shots at two small boats of possible Iranian origin in the Persian Gulf.
As you probably know, Yalicoo’s players manage so far to remain immune from the market volatility, and the competitions continue to be an interesting trading arena. The
monthly competition has three days to go and the tension is incredibly high as the differences between the leaders are relatively narrow. WaNnAeBe is currently in the lead with 16.64%, while BanderaS (15.85%) and dojimon (15.35%) are just 1% behind, and fieldGoals and Trader420 are 3-4% further behind. WaNnAeBe is expecting (and…predicting) that Internet stocks such as YHOO and BIDU will yield better results in the coming week, while BanderaS is mainly picking the alternative energy stocks such as FSLR, SPWR and SOLF.
Note that dojimon and WaNnAeBe are holding almost the same mix of stocks in their portfolios. It is hard to predict who between these two is the “designer” of this portfolio, but one of these two traders is probably using one of Yalicoo’s best advantages - the ability to follow other traders moves and profit from this.
In the
quarterly competition, agent stabilized his leading position last week, increasing his return to more than 18%. He continues to hold Google (GOOG), his portfolio's highest gainer, and the well known alternative energy stocks – FSLR, SPWR and SOLF. After a drop in the last few months, these stocks have recently soared, and are now trading with very high multiples. Perhaps, agent is predicting that the upwind trend of these stocks will continue in the near future.
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